In an era of global sourcing, the firm’s success often hinges on the most appropriate selection of its suppliers. Supplier selection is sometimes very complicated, owing to a variety of uncontrollable and unpredictable factors which affect the decision. Describes a multiple attribute utility...

Current studies indicate that buyers can improve lead‐time performance and reduce total inventory‐system costs by splitting orders between two suppliers. These studies, however, treat transportation only implicitly as an element of the cost of placing an order. This is an important...

The concepts of supply‐chain design and management have come to the fore, owing to the ever‐increasing complexity of the systems driving buyer‐supplier relations in both industrial and consumer‐based markets. The unprecedented levels of supply‐chain management complexity are partly...

The development of enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages has created an opportunity to re‐engineer supply chains within and beyond the organizational scope. Most notably, SAP R/3 has been widely implemented to create value‐oriented supply chains that enable a high level of integration,...

Discusses a recent practical experience of reconfiguring a logistics system in Europe. Begins by outlining the changing market boundaries and asserts that, whilst the trend is towards global manufacturing and a simplification of the supply chain and standardization of products, conflicts are...

Analyses the supply chains of the FMCG and the durable goods in Italy and shows particular methods of management, points of considerable development (manufacturing postponement) and the general lack of scale economics. Postponement is a practice that is being increasingly diffused to meet better...

Begins by reviewing the need to outsource logistics activities. Asserts that a new market‐led business philosophy has become the core competence of companies that are serious about their survival. Addresses the question of whether there is a need for localised services and whether the...

One way in which the manufacturing and construction industries are moving is to adopt the philosophy of concurrent engineering (CE), better utilising the expertise of other companies in the supply chain. This paper draws on the results of several previous studies to discuss from a conceptual...

Attempts to propose an infrastructure of a supply chain information system, focusing on the component modules necessary for the building up of such a system with a description of the creation of these modules. The proposed supply chain information system embraces the concept of distributed...

The principal objective of this study is to understand the impact that the adoption of quick response (QR) has had on manufacturing firms in the retail supply chain. The adoption of QR by six organisations within the Victorian textile clothing and footwear industry is used to review the impact...